Afternoon Walk

We spent another lunch time on an afternoon walk and let me tell you it is such a joy to walk along the frosty path with my best friend! Thank you best fella for always being willing to go out of your way to walk with me at lunch time!

Belong

Where do I belong? This is something that I have asked myself many times over the years, and as my life has grown, and changed so has the answer. I am not just talking about what community do I call home, it goes just a bit deeper. Currently my question of belonging is centered more around extended family.

Living in Alaska and a Brazilian miles away from our family of origin there are only a few of us that are lucky enough to have extended family that also live here. But it is a big state and sometimes it is a full day’s travel to get to someone’s house. Some of us will go out of our way to visit our extended family. If it is important enough to you, you will make the drive and put in the time.

If there is a big event, a wedding, a graduation or milestone anniversary then it is customary and polite to invite family. Family and extended family alike and as I recently read on Twolfgcd’s Blog post Invitation, “It doesn't take much. And somehow, just by having an invitation offered to us, we feel like we “belong”, or at the very least, that our company is desired and wanted. In this world that can be so very hard and indifferent, that is a nice thing.”

To someone with a lonely broken heart an invitation can change everything. Have you forgotten anyone? Did you send out all the invitations?

Merry Christmas

May your day be peaceful and your heart filled with joy!

Merry Christmas to each of you!

It's Dark in Here

Just how dark it is, and just how dark it could become is all in your perspective. When you live in the extreme northern (or southern) latitudes there can be a dramatic and quick change in the amount of possible daylight that each day brings from season to season. Fall to winter especially can be disturbing to most folks, add in the daylight savings time with its striking fall back change in the evening and this could send a person right over the edge.

Let’s talk latitude. Anchorage is at 61° 13’ 5” N latitude and Fairbanks is at 64° 50’ 16” N, the three degrees difference might not sound like it would matter much but it does. In fact this adds up to a difference of one hour and 44 minutes more possible sunlight in Anchorage on winter solstice, which again might not sound like it would matter much but truly it does, believe you me, it does. Also take into consideration that a full hour of this difference is in the afternoon making Anchorage the winner of this race.

Let’s talk perspective, most Anchorage residences (in my opinion) do not have a true sense of what living in Alaska is all about; in my time here I have met many folks who have called Anchorage home for 30 plus years and they seem to have a skewed perspective of the state in which they live.

If I had a nickel for each time I heard some mamby pamby Anchor-town resident complain about how dark it is or just how dark it is going to be at winter solstice, I’d be a rich person as the saying goes.

But given their perspective and the fact that they think they live in Alaska on the edge of nowhere, in the dark, I’ll throw them one bone of agreement, as it is their perspective, and I cannot necessarily take that away from them. But do keep in mind that only a handful of these Anchor-town folks that I am talking about have visited Fairbanks, once, in the summer time, so their point of reference is vastly slanted. From my perspective this is paradise compared to the cold and dark of Fairbanks or Barrow for that matter, so I am enjoying the amount of sunlight allotted me each day in Anchor-town and I quietly roll my eyes at others piteous grumbling.

Happy winter solstice everyone! Bask in the glow of the sun and the warmth of the love you share!

High Five Friday for Chocolate

High five Friday of chocolate and Alaska Wild Berry Products!

Christmas in coming and it is time to enjoy sharing the love of chocolate love!

High Five Friday for Family Walks

High five Friday for family walks and enjoying time together!

Share the love!

Faith and Resilience

When I am feeling the warm surrounding comfort of my faith, faith in the Lord, I am a dandelion that can withstand any dry spell, as I know it is all part of the plan for my life. I have faith that I am exactly where I am supposed to be at that exact moment. I am up for the challenge of what’s next.

On dark gray parched days when all seems wrong in my world, when there is no soothing balm to be seen for miles, that is when my faith wavers. I am an orchid in need of extra kindness and devotion by the gardeners in my life. These are also the times I find myself asking “why me” and wondering if I have been forgotten.

Do we ask ourselves “why me” when we are feeling low and without faith? And on the contrary when our faith is strong do we ask ourselves “what next”?

Does our faith make us more resilient? For me there is peace in knowing that my faith will guide me through the harsh days when my dandelion self says to the world “bring it on”. Likewise during my orchid days or weeks, as are sometimes the case, my faith again will guide me to trust in our Lord and lean on my gardeners to nurture my tender soul so that I can bloom again.

Have faith in your resilience and the Lord.

Share the love often and always!

Resilient

Are you a dandelion or an orchid? Or are you somewhere in between? I would gather that most of us are both, given the variety of circumstances we find ourselves standing at during different times in our lives.

Dandelions are known to be resilient and feisty plants that seem to grow and flourish under all sorts of conditions. They thrive in deficiency or surfeit of resources such as water or sunlight. They seem to be able to take whatever is thrown their way and succeed.

Orchids on the other hand have the reputation of being difficult to grow, tough to make bloom, and downright problematic to propagate from division or seed. Most of us that have tried to keep orchids as house plants have found them to be a bit of a challenge. It can be a comfort to know that even for a few professional growers some orchid varieties are almost impossible to encourage to grow and bloom.

So are you an orchid or a dandelion or somewhere in between? What do you need to grow and flourish?

What makes you resilient?

"How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough

There are quirky ways that information filters into our lives each and every day. Last week I stumbled upon the below book review and today I could not tell you how it happened.

This is from the Sunday Book Review - The New Your Times written by Annie Murphy Paul published August 12,2012

Below are the parts of the book review that stood out for me but please read the entire review for yourself by clicking HERE.

The book is “How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough

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“Most readers of The New York Times probably subscribe to what Paul Tough calls “the cognitive hypothesis”: the belief “that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills — the kind of intelligence that gets measured on I.Q. tests, including the abilities to recognize letters and words, to calculate, to detect patterns — and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible.” In his new book, “How Children Succeed,” Tough sets out to replace this assumption with what might be called the character hypothesis: the notion that noncognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success.”

“The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. When you’re overwhelmed by uncontrollable impulses and distracted by negative feelings, it’s hard to learn the alphabet.” Paul Tough book “How Children Succeed”

“Children can be buffered from surrounding stresses by attentive, responsive parenting, but the adults in these children’s lives are often too burdened by their own problems to offer such care.”

“He explores the research of Suniya Luthar, a psychology professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Luthar “found that parenting mattered at both socioeconomic extremes. For both rich and poor teenagers, certain family characteristics predicted children’s maladjustment, including low levels of maternal attachment, high levels of parental criticism and minimal after-school adult supervision. Among the affluent children, Luthar found, the main cause of distress was ‘excessive achievement pressures and isolation from parents — both physical and emotional.’ ”

“Character-building combination of support and autonomy…”

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This book is now on my must read this year list.